Friday, October 21, 2011

Jimmy Carter sold peanuts, Ronald Reagan helped sell Crack Cocaine

The offshore corporate banksters say it is okay to kill anyone against them, anywhere in the world. Any rightful owners of resources and assets, beware. Gaddafi was no saint. Killing without trials, torture, and confinement without charges is okay with you, right? Well, then why not celebrate Gaddafi's death?

Did Gaddafi care more about his own people than Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan?

The CIA and Offshore Corporate Banksters had nothing on Jimmy Carter. He couldn't be bought, he couldn't be blackmailed, they knew he was too moral to be threatened into doing wrong. I was first a Conservative Non-Religious Nut Republican, so I say what I say after seeing the light. I think the general opinion of Carter was wrong 30 years ago. True historical judgment, minus the lies and propaganda, will look at the greatness of Jimmy Carter differently.

40th US President Ronald Reagan image and bio [Wikipedia]We needed Oliver North, the Reagan election committee seeing to it the US hostages in Iran were held after the election, and that Carter's military rescue plan failed with US troops being sacrificed for political black bag operations, to have the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980's. Was Reagan nothing more than a glorified drug lord?America sells its soul, Iran Contra.

The Iran–Contra affair (Persian: ایران-کنترا, Spanish: caso Irán-contras), also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or Iran-Contra-Gate, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration officials and President Reagan secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo.[1] Some U.S. officials also hoped that the arms sales would secure the release of hostages and allow U.S. intelligence agencies to fund the NicaraguanContras. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress.

The scandal began as an operation to free American hostages being held by terrorist groups with Iranian ties. It was planned that Israel would ship weapons to Iran, and then the U.S. would resupply Israel and receive the Israeli payment. The Iranian recipients promised to do everything in their power to achieve the release of six U.S. hostages, who were being held by the Lebanese ShiaIslamist group Hezbollah, who in turn were connected to the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. The plan deteriorated into an arms-for-hostages scheme, in which members of the executive branch sold weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of the American hostages.[2][3] Large modifications to the plan were devised by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council in late 1985, in which a portion of the proceeds from the weapon sales was diverted to fund anti-Sandinista and anti-communist rebels, or Contras, in Nicaragua.[4][5]

While President Ronald Reagan was a supporter of the Contra cause,[6] no conclusive evidence has been found showing that he authorized the diversion of the money raised by the Iranian arms sales to the Contras.[2][3][7] Handwritten notes taken by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger indicate that Reagan was aware of potential hostages transfers with Iran, as well as the sale of Hawk and TOW missiles to what he was told were "moderate elements" within that country.[8] Oliver North, one of the central figures in the affair, wrote in a book that "Ronald Reagan knew of and approved a great deal of what went on with both the Iranian initiative and private efforts on behalf of the contras and he received regular, detailed briefings on both." Mr. North also writes: "I have no doubt that he was told about the use of residuals for the Contras, and that he approved it. Enthusiastically."[9] After the weapon sales were revealed in November 1986, Reagan appeared on national television and stated that the weapons transfers had indeed occurred, but that the United States did not trade arms for hostages.[10] To this day, it is unclear exactly what Reagan knew and when, and whether the arms sales were motivated by his desire to save the U.S. hostages. Notes taken December 7, 1985, by Defense Secretary Weinberger record that Reagan said that "he could answer charges of illegality but he couldn't answer charge [sic] that 'big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free hostages.'"[8] The investigation was impeded when large volumes of documents relating to the scandal were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan administration officials.[11] On March 4, 1987, Reagan returned to the airwaves in a nationally televised address, taking full responsibility for any actions that he was unaware of, and admitting that "what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages."[12]

Several investigations ensued, including those by the United States Congress and the three-man, Reagan-appointed Tower Commission. Neither found any evidence that President Reagan himself knew of the extent of the multiple programs.[2][3][7] In the end, fourteen administration officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of DefenseCaspar Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal.[13] The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the presidency of George H. W. Bush, who had been vice-president at the time of the affair.[14] Several of those involved in the Iran–Contra scandal, later became a member of the administration of George W. Bush. Only one, Elliott Abrams, was convicted of two misdemeanors and subsequently pardoned.[15]

The scandal

The scandal was composed of arms sales to Iran in violation of the official US policy of an arms embargo against Iran, and of using funds thus generated to arm and train the Contra militants based in Honduras as they waged a guerilla war to topple the government of Nicaragua.[16][17] The Contras' form of warfare was "one of consistent and bloody abuse of human rights, of murder, torture, mutilation, rape, arson, destruction and kidnapping."[18][19] The "Contras systematically engage in violent abuses... so prevalent that these may be said to be their principal means of waging war."[20] A Human Rights Watch report found that the Contras were guilty of targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination; kidnapping civilians; torturing and executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat; raping women; indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian homes; seizing civilian property; and burning civilian houses in captured towns.[21]

Direct funding of the Contras insurgency had been made illegal through the Boland Amendment,[7] the name given to three U.S. legislative amendments between 1982 and 1984 aimed at limiting US government assistance to the Contras militants. In violation of the Boland Amendment, senior officials of the Reagan administration continued to secretly arm and train the Contras and provide arms to Iran, an operation they called "the Enterprise".[22]

The project exposed

The scandal emerged when a Lebanese newspaper reported that the U.S. sold arms to Iran through Israel in exchange for the release of hostages by Hezbollah.[23] Letters sent by Oliver North to John Poindexter support this.[24][25] The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. has said that the reason weapons were eventually sold directly to Iran was to establish links with elements of the military in the country.[citation needed]

Arms transactions

Michael Ledeen, a consultant of National Security AdviserRobert McFarlane, requested assistance from Israeli Prime MinisterShimon Peres for help in the sale of arms to Iran.[26][27] At the time, Iran was in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War and could find few Western nations willing to supply it with weapons.[28] The idea behind the plan was for Israel to ship weapons through an intermediary (identified as Manucher Ghorbanifar)[2] to a supposedly moderate, politically influential Iranian group opposed to the Ayatollah Khomeni;[29] after the transaction, the U.S. would reimburse Israel with the same weapons, while receiving monetary benefits. The Israeli government required that the sale of arms meet high level approval from the United States government, and when Robert McFarlane convinced them that the U.S. government approved the sale, Israel obliged by agreeing to sell the arms.[26]

In 1985, President Reagan entered Bethesda Naval Hospital for colon cancer surgery. While the President was recovering in the hospital, McFarlane met with him and told him that Representatives from Israel had contacted the National Security Agency to pass on confidential information from what Reagan later described as "moderate" Iranians opposed to the Ayatollah.[29] According to Reagan, these Iranians sought to establish a quiet relationship with the United States, before establishing formal relationships upon the death of the Ayatollah.[29] In Reagan's account, McFarlane told Reagan that the Iranians, to demonstrate their seriousness, offered to persuade the Hezbollah terrorists to release the seven U.S. hostages.[30] McFarlane met with the Israeli intermediaries;[31] Reagan claims that he allowed this because he believed that establishing relations with a strategically located country, and preventing the Soviet Union from doing the same, was a beneficial move.[29] Although Reagan claims that the arms sales were to a "moderate" faction of Iranians, the Walsh Iran/Contra Report states that the arms sales were "to Iran" itself,[32] which was under the control of the Ayatollah.

Following the Israeli-U.S. meeting, Israel requested permission from the U.S. to sell a small number of TOW antitank missiles (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided) to the "moderate" Iranians,[30] saying that it would demonstrate that the group actually had high-level connections to the U.S. government.[30] Reagan initially rejected the plan, until Israel sent information to the U.S. showing that the "moderate" Iranians were opposed to terrorism and had fought against it.[33] Now having a reason to trust the "moderates", Reagan approved the transaction, which was meant to be between Israel and the "moderates" in Iran, with the U.S. reimbursing Israel.[30] In his 1990 autobiography An American Life, Reagan claimed that he was deeply committed to securing the release of the hostages; it was this compassion that supposedly motivated his support for the arms initiatives.[2] The president requested that the "moderate" Iranians do everything in their capability to free the hostages held by Hezbollah.[34]

In 1981, The CIA began selling arms to Iran at high prices, using the profits to arm the Contras fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. President Reagan vows that the Sandinistas will be "pressured" until "they say ‘uncle.’" The US also sends military advisors to El Salvador.[36]

United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY gets over 2,000,000 youtube.com hits on a video where he questions New York City Police brutality present at the Occupy Wall St. Movement, video embedded at the bottom of [this post].

2 Comments:

Americans are forced to pay for these wars. I don't think a majority of us would have voted for any of them. So, we are being taxed without real representation. The offshore corporate owners and banksters are represented. They're allowed to make unlimited contributions.